Method of graining floors



July 14-, 1925.

E. B. CRITTENDEN METHOD OF GRAINING FLOORS Filed Feb, 5, 1925 nwcnfct Brown Crlfienden Patented July ,14, 1925 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICEL ELLA BROWN CRITTENDEN, OF ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.

MErHo-n or GRAINING FLOORS.

Application filed February 3, 1925. Serial No. 6,663.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that ELLA BROWN CRITTEN- DEN, a citizen of the United States, residing 'dark andlight boards used in laying hard wood floors. n

This and other objects of this invention will befully illustrated in the drawing, described in the specification and pointed out in the claim at the end thereof.

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure 1 is a perspective view illustrating a section of a room in which the floor is being refinished to give itthe appearance of a hard wood floor.

The process forming the subject matter of this invention is applied to old floors or floors that are made of the cheaper and softer lumber and in which. the individual boards are comparatively wide. The floor is prepared for the process by first filling all cracks and holes in the floor with a filler and then giving the floor two coats of ground paint.

Two or more straight edges 1, 1 having the width of the individnal strips of the hard wood -fioor that is to be imitated are used for the process. These straight edges extend the full length of the room and are laid side by side on the floor with one of the straight edges next to the base board of the wall of the room. After the straight edges are lined up in this manner the first one of them, that is, the one next to the baseboard or wall is lifted up and placed behind the other one or two remaining straight edges 1. This exposes a strip of .vfiooring that is equal in width to the straight edge 1 that has been removed. The strip of flooring thus exposed is then covered with the desired shade of stain by means of a narrow brush. It may also be comed and grained at the same time to make this strip of flooring thus finished a more perfect imitation of a hard wood strip.

After the first strip of flooring is thus stained and finished the second straight edge 1 is taken up and placed behind the other remaining straight edge 1. This exposes another strip of flooring to be covered with stain and finished with a comb or graining tool to imitate another strip .of hard Wood. The second strip of flooring thus produced may be made with a darker or lighter shade of stain so as to offset it from the first strip just as two genuine hard wood strips of wood appear in a hard wood floor. This process is repeated until the whole of the floor is covered and finished to give it the appearance of being made up of many narrow strips of wood instead of but a smaller number of wide boards.

To get the occasional eflect of slanting graining between light and dark shades of imitation hard wood strips, one of the straight edges 1 maybe placed angularly to the already finished strips using the straight edge as a guide to guide the brush at an angle to the imitation strips of flooring.

One half of this angular strip may be made a darker shade than the other half in order to more effectively imitate the graining of a genuine hard wood floor.

In this way two or three different imitation strips of hard wood flooring may be alternately produced giving the whole of the floor thus finished the appearance of a hard wood floor. The 'combing and graining of the stripslis, of course, a matter of taste and can be varied. After the floor has been stained and'grained in the manner above pointed out it is allowed to dry and then two or three coats of shellac are applied to it to cover the stain and preserve its finish. The shellac finish after it is dry is waxed and polished giving it the glossy appearance of a hard wood floor.

I claim:

The process of finishing floors to produce an imitation fioorwhich consists in first covering the floor with a ground coat of paint, then covering a small section or" the floor with two or more straight edges, picking up one of the straight edges and placing it behind the last straight edge and staining, and graining the strip of flooring thus uncovered by the removal of said straight edge, picking up the next straight edge and placing it behind the last straight edge to uncover another strip of flooring, and covering this strip with stain having a difl'erent shade, and thus uncovering, staining and graining the flooring in front of the straight edges as it is uncovered until the whole of the flooring is stained with a 10 series of strips of differently shaded stain and grained to imitate a hard wood floor" ELLA BROWN CRITTENDEN. 

